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American Women Artists at Work 1825–2015 by COURTNEY A

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American Women Artists at Work 1825–2015 by COURTNEY A Electrical In Movement: American Women Artists at Work 1825–2015 BY COURTNEY A. LYNCH “The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.” —MARGARET FULLER Electrical In Movement: American Women Artists at Work 1825–2015 November 19, 2015–January 29, 2016 Hawthorne Fine Art, Manhattan Showroom (by appointment) 12 East 86th Street, Suite 527, New York, NY 10028 I AM DELIGHTED to bring forth an exhibition focused on the brilliant talents and fascinating lives of American women artists spanning two centuries. It is with gratitude to those who supported the exhibition I had co-curated at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in 2010, Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School that I was motivated to expand on the concept by incorporating future generations of women. I very much hope you enjoy the diversity of subject matter contained in this show which I feel truly reflects the versatility of female talent in the profile of American Art. I would also like to thank Courtney A. Lynch for her persevering efforts in uncovering the latent stories behind each work and its maker. We greatly look forward to hearing your response to these images. JENNIFER C. KRIEGER Managing Partner, Hawthorne Fine Art, LLC 212.731.0550 [email protected] MALLORY AGERTON (b. 1956) The Line of Beauty, 2015 Oil on panel, 24 x 36 inches,Signed lower right The Texas-based painter Mallory Agerton’s artistic practice strives to achieve a duality of spiritualism and realism in landscape representation. Agerton, who studied at the Art Students League in New York City under Robert Beverly Hale (1901–1985) and David Leffel (b. 1931) and at the Landscape Atelier Program, holds a BFA from the University of Texas in Austin. Inspired by points in the Texas Hill Country and the mountains of Colorado, Agerton’s practice is one based on observation. While calling upon the tradition of realism inherent in the work of her natural predecessors—such as the Hudson River School painters and Tonalists of the nineteenth century—Agerton’s work also engages with contemporary notions of memory and imagined spaces. While she works en plein air to sketch many of her compositions, Agerton completes her renderings with the aid of her memory and imagination. The resulting compositions reveal hybrid scenes that play with representation—striving to evoke a place rather than to simply illustrate it. The Line of Beauty emulates the ethereal, dream-like quality often found in Agerton’s work. ELECTRICAL IN MOVEMENT 1 2 HAWTHORNE FINE ART ALICE WORTHINGTON BALL (1869–1929) Sunday on the Old Plantation, Savannah, Georgia, 1923 Oil on board, 16 x 20 inches, Exhibition label on verso EXHIBITED: Casson Galleries, Boston, November 1923 REFERENCED: “The World of Art: Sketches in Oil,”Boston Herald, November 11, 1923, 42 “Her work shows great breadth of conception and power of execution. It is evident that she has penetrated beneath the surface of material objects and been enabled, a consequence [sic], to represent the deeper meanings of the scenes she portrays.” 1 The Boston-born artist, Alice Worthington Ball, studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts under noted painters Frank W. Benson (1862–1951) and Edmund C. Tarbell (1862–1938), before furthering her artistic training in Europe—first in Paris under the guidance of Gustave-Claude-Étienne Courtois (1852–1923) and Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), and later in Holland under the American expatriate George Hitchcock (1850–1913). Upon her return to America she spent her time alternately between Baltimore and her native Massachusetts, where she often painted in Gloucester and Provincetown. A member of the Friends of Art of Baltimore, Ball was also an active member of the North Shore Arts Association of Gloucester, MA. Sunday on the Old Plantation is one of several paintings Ball created on a trip to Georgia in early 1923, almost all of which were executed with a palette knife. This style, which diverges dramatically from that of her teachers as well as her earlier work, exhibits a preoccupation with alternative applications of paint and emphatically textured surfaces. In a visual articulation reminiscent of Impressionism, Ball employs shape, tone and color to reference the elaborate scene—the figures in the foreground, the sinewy branches of the trees, the thatched roof of the hovel—in an abbreviated hand. Though operating within a categorically modern visual language and sensibility, Ball’s treatment of the scene nonetheless succeeds in generating a quintessentially colorful and lively image of Southern life. 1 “Miss Ball’s Exhibition,” Boston Herald, January 9, 1910, 40. ELECTRICAL IN MOVEMENT 3 4 HAWTHORNE FINE ART MEGAN BONGIOVANNI (b. 1975) Four Seasons Along the Hudson, 2015 Oil on linen panel, 5 x 7 inches each, Signed lower right Megan Bongiovanni, who studied at the Pont-Aven School of Art in Brittany, France (1997), at the School of Visual Arts (2004, 2009), and at the Art Students League (2010) in New York City, holds a BFA in painting from the Parsons School of Design (1999). Her work, which has been exhibited regionally, strives for bold, non- romanticized representations of land- and skyscapes. In an effort to reconcile her city surroundings with her artistic training in Pont-Aven, France, Bongiovanni turned from representations of idyllic scenes to studies of simplified landscape details: bright, imagined seascapes, tracts of expansive rolling hills, and swaths of cloud- dotted skies dominate Bongiovanni’s work. Bongiovanni’s preference for small panels—usually measuring six inches—creates an intimate space for viewing, while the simplified forms suggest the undulating lines of land, sea and air rather than illustrating them outright. Bongiovanni’s works, above all, demand an appreciation for form. Bongiovanni’s Four Seasons panels conform to the time-honored trope of illustrating the year’s divisions in series and across disciplines—from Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s portrait heads (1560s and 70s), to Alphonse Mucha’s series of feminine personifications (1896), to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concerti (1720–25) and accompanying poems. The panels of Bongiovanni’s Four Seasons are intimate portraits of imagined spaces. They invite the viewer to appreciate the nuances of color, line and form while reflecting the introspective nature of her practice. ELECTRICAL IN MOVEMENT 5 EDITH BOWERS (b. 1865) Still Life with Vase and Red Shoes, 1897 Oil on board, 10 x 18 inches, Signed and dated 1897, lower left Edith Bowers, now all but completely forgotten within the art historical record, has left behind works such as the present still life. They are testaments not only to women’s talents in painting even at the fringe of the nineteenth and early twentieth century art world, but also records of daily life and, in this case, women’s fashion. Shoes in the nineteenth century, much like today, were not simply utilitarian; as much as any other article of clothing or accessory, they conveyed the wearer’s status or class, and during the Gilded Age industrialization introduced a broader range of 6 HAWTHORNE FINE ART mass-produced styles and shoe types. The shoes depicted in Still Life with Vase and Red Shoes are slippers, meant to be worn indoors and around the house, made fashionable by the addition of a pom-pom-like tassel over the toe. Shoe styles—even for indoor shoes such as these—changed quickly towards the latter end of the nineteenth century, featuring a square toe in the 1870s, rounded in the 1880s, and pointy in the 1890s. Still Life with Vase and Red Shoes is predicated on careful study and attention to detail. The still life features two colorful and ornately decorated slippers (made fashionable by eastern-inspired embroidery and the inclusion of pom-pom rosettes) laid beside a dark, reflective vase. Her use of paint and color is restrained and meticulously thought-out, despite the disparate colors present in her subject matter. Though Bowers’ artistic and educational background are unclear, it is undeniable that her work benefitted from years of careful study and practice. ELECTRICAL IN MOVEMENT 7 MATILDA BROWNE (1869–1947) Still Life with Bluebells and Peonies Oil on board, 36 x 30 inches, Signed lower right Best known for her lush landscapes, flower paintings, and picturesque scenes of animals, the American Impressionist Matilda Browne demonstrated considerable talent as a painter at a young age. When she was just twelve years old, one of Browne’s flower paintings was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York City. She studied with the Hudson River School landscapist Thomas Moran (1837–1926) before traveling abroad in 1889. Browne traveled to Holland, where she studied with Henry Bisbing (1839–1933) and France, where she studied with Julian Dupré (1851–1910) in Barbizon. Browne was a constant student, studying additionally with such distinguished artists as Eleanor Elizabeth Greatorex (1854–1897), Frederick Freer (1849–1908), Charles Melville Dewey (1849–1937) and Carleton Wiggins (1848–1932). Browne was active as an artist in New York City before becoming affiliated with the art colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut, in 1905. Established by the American Barbizon painter Henry Ward Ranger (1858–1916) in 1899, the Old Lyme Art Colony quickly became a important location for the development of American Impressionism. Centered around the boarding house run by Florence Griswold, the artists of the Old Lyme Art Colony were not always accepting of female artists into their ranks. However, Browne’s artistic talent gained her recognition and respect from her male colleagues. She is therefore considered the first and only fully accepted female member of the Old Lyme Art Colony. Reflecting on Browne’s artistic accomplishments in the Colony, as well as the gendered association of the Colony itself and the artists’ exuberant Impressionist technique, the writer Henriette Daus has said: Matilda Browne is one of the best equipped of women painters.
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